My final and most important piece of wisdom to share with whoever may be reading this is to maximize on the opportunities you have. Seriously, very few people have the luxury of traveling, and if you’re one of them – live it up! Really save up so you can afford to do the things you want to do, don’t go to your dream destination and then not be able to actually experience anything. Make sure to go with people who share the same interests as you. If you like nature and sightseeing, don’t go with people who are only into shopping. If you just want to relax or party it up wherever you are, don’t go with someone who wants to see every single historical landmark and has a strict hourly schedule for each day. It’s so important to go with people with compatible interests so that you can fully enjoy yourself. I also encourage you to push your comfort zone! Don’t just go to the main touristy places, do some research and find what else your country/city of choice has to offer – you never know what you’ll find. With that last piece of general advice, I also want to share what I’ve personally found interesting at the places I’ve been to! Some of them are touristy or well-known, others are a bit more off the grid. I hope this gives some of you an incentive to check these places out, they were truly incredible. Comment below if you have any further questions about the places I went to or stayed at, I would be more than happy to help. Happy travels! 🙂

 

 

The next thing I learned from this summer was just how essential it is to research and organize before you take off places. Some travel Instagram’s will make it seem as easy as picking a place and boarding a plane. I will say that I’ve seen and gotten to experience some incredible things, but if you don’t want to put the time and effort in, don’t do it. A trip is not nearly as enjoyable if you’re stressed about where you’re going to stay, what you’re going to do, etc. Plan, seriously. I can’t give specifics on where exactly you should go or what you should do when you’re there, because everyone has different preferences. However, from my experience I would say to research different housing options before you settle on one. Usually I’ve chosen between Airbnb’s, hotels, and hostels. Hotels can be a cheap option if you’re willing to split with a lot of people, but that just depends on your standard of living. Personally, I don’t mind roughing it for a bit if it means I can afford to do more fun things while I’m visiting somewhere (If we have to cram 7 friends in one hotel room and someone has to sleep in a bathtub, then so be it). Sometimes I’ve even taken overnight trains from one place to another and just slept there. Again, not the most glamorous option. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to.

Airbnb’s and hostels can be awesome, relatively cheap options as well. Hostels are especially neat for meeting new people, but I’d be sure to do some extra research with that to make sure it’s in a good area/doesn’t have bad reviews. The last thing you want is sharing a room with 12 people who you don’t trust or are a bit sketchy. Lastly on housing, getting good reviews on Airbnb helps out a ton! The more respectful host you are, the better review you’ll get, and the more other people will want to host you. Positive feedback loop. Don’t mean to brag, but here’s some stellar reviews I received.

That about covers it with housing. Again, I don’t know where the best restaurant is where you’re visiting, where you’ll find the cheapest wine, or when the super dope weekly Farmer’s Market is going on. However, I do know that if you do some extensive research of where you’re going beforehand, you can find some pretty neat stuff! If you happen to know someone in the country you’re visiting or know of someone who’s been there before, definitely ask them for some advice too! I’ve found some of the most memorable places by reaching out to some connections I have in places. Blindly showing up to a place and just expecting to find things to do doesn’t work out, trust me (especially when you’re somewhere that doesn’t speak your native language). I don’t mean to deter you from vacationing at all, but just know that it is a lot of prep work! It will be an overall more enjoyable experience if you do your homework beforehand and stay organized while you travel. For example, my friends and I would keep Google Docs and spreadsheets to keep track of where we were going, loosely planning what we wanted to do when we got there, information of wherever we were staying, public transport in the area, and the money we owed each other from meals out (exchange rate included!). This isn’t by any means the most fun part of traveling or the part that anyone shows on Instagram, but it’s a necessary evil, and it’s so much easier to enjoy yourself once you get all of the clerical work out of the way.

 

 

The first major takeaway from traveling on your own/with a few friends was to make sure at least one person has a working international phone. I didn’t ever have one, and I am so grateful that the people I was with did. This is important especially if you are going to be somewhere for a long period of time, or traveling from one place to another. It’s not so much a matter of having your phone to check Facebook or post pictures from all the cool places you’re seeing (although I do admit both are essential). It’s definitely possible to get by for a little while without an international plan, mostly because in this day and age there’s wifi in so many places. I was traveling Europe for a while studying abroad this summer, and whenever I went anywhere and needed service I could usually count on there could be a Starbucks nearby. After all, it’s 2018, there’s a Starbucks or McDonald’s pretty much anywhere that lets you log in for a few minutes to text your mom to tell her you’re still alive. However, that’s not something you always want to have to rely on. Phone’s are essential when you’re in an unfamiliar place. Sometimes things go wrong. You can lose people and need to contact them, you can get lost yourself and need directions, there could be so many disasters that are easily solved by having a way to connect with the world. As a cautionary tale, I will share one with you all; from when I was young and naïve (just kidding, this happened a few months ago). My friend and I took a weekend trip from our school in Dublin to go up to Northern Ireland and check out some really cool landmarks, the Giant’s Causeway and Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. (If you ever get the chance to, I would highly recommend going to them! There’s a pretty cool bus tour that goes through both of those and a bunch of Game of Throne destinations, if you’re into that. We didn’t go on that tour specifically, but I heard great things about it.

(Side note if you find yourself at either of these places:)

1. Giant’s Causeway is a fascinating place because of the misshapen rocks forming the ground. You can find out more about the legend surrounding it if you take a tour, but you can google it for the same effect. There’s also a small hike to the top of a mountain overlooking the entire coast which I would highly recommend if you’re physically able/have the time. It’s a very different perspective, and most people don’t end up going up there, so you could get some unique pictures.
2. The rope bridge looks cool from afar, but if you’re going to make the trip all the way out there, CROSS THE BRIDGE!! I didn’t end up doing it because of time constraints (turns out it’s quite the hike to the bridge, and if you didn’t buy a ticket at the visitor center, then you’re out of luck). If you’re going to go all the way out to the middle of nowhere though, definitely make sure you actually cross it, all I got was a nice view.

Anyways, back to my story. So my friend and I had checked out the rope bridge and had to make it back to Belfast, the city where we were staying. Due to poor planning and misinformation on bus schedules, we realized there was only one more bus running for the day. We decided to cancel our plans for the rest of the day and just head to the bus stop early to make sure we catch it. Keep in mind, this place was truly in the middle of nowhere. Once the visitor center for the bridge closed, there was practically no civilization nearby. There wasn’t a town for a few miles out, it didn’t seem like taxis were an option in this town (city? village?), and Europe doesn’t use Uber or Lyft. If we missed this bus, we were royally screwed. That being said, we got to the bus stop about 30 minutes later and met Joe, a guy from Kansas who had already been waiting for the bus for some time. He mentioned that he had heard there was an accident on the main road, so the buses are running late. We accepted the fate that we would be waiting at this bus stop in the middle of nowhere for some time and sat down and got to know Joe. He asked us several times who had won the most recent World Cup game, which was strange considering he knew we were stranded at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere without working phones, but I digress. We waited, and waited, and waited. It got to a point where it had been about an hour past the point where the last bus of the day was supposed to come, and things were looking pretty grim. We weren’t sure if the bus was going to come at all (we discovered later that it was a major road blockage and since so many roads in Ireland are smaller dirt roads not made for buses, there wasn’t another way for it to arrive to us). Joe suggested walking to the nearest hotel, but it was miles away, we didn’t really have a good way of directing ourselves there, and let’s be honest; no one wants to go to a hotel with a random guy from Kansas that they had just met at a bus stop. My friend and I decided that the next best course of action was to just scope out someone who looked nonthreatening and take our luck with hitchhiking. Just when we were about to give up on the bus, a non-service bus appeared at the end of the road. He saw us on the side of the road and informed us that there were no more buses coming, but was our guardian angel and decided to pick us up even though this technically wasn’t part of his route and he was on his way back to the station. That situation could’ve turned out really poorly, but we lucked out. The point is, though, if one of us had had a phone, that probably wouldn’t have happened. We probably could’ve called our friend we were staying with to tell her where we were, we could’ve used google maps to locate the nearest city/hotel, the list goes on and on. Learn from my mistakes, please get a SIM card installed in your phone if you go abroad, it’s super easy and not that expensive. If you can’t do that (my phone was a rental, so I wasn’t able to), you can buy a prepaid, or maybe even borrow someone else’s. There’s tons of options. If you absolutely can’t be bothered to do that, make sure to at least download offline Google Maps for the places you’ll be visiting. Absolute life-saver.

 

 

Hi friends, Julianna here!

If you’re like me, you might be a little tired of all of the traveling Instagram accounts. You know, the ones where people seem to have all the money in the world to do and see anything they want? Accounts where people are posting a “too perfect to even be real” picture from a Greek island one day, and an adventurous picture of them feeding a money in the jungles of South America the next? The type of accounts I’m referring to are one’s like Jay Alvarrez (https://www.instagram.com/jayalvarrez/). There are thousands of accounts like this one. Everyone can agree that his posts are interesting & peak the interest of their followers. There are some insanely gorgeous places, it makes you want to drop whatever you’re doing at this exact second and fly across the world. However, they’re not very useful for people who have a serious interest in traveling. Posts from these insta-famous accounts almost never have helpful information on where exactly they went, how they budget all these trips, and how they planned them so effectively. Lucky for you, I’m here to help! From someone who has been lucky enough to have a few opportunities to travel (some trips planned entirely on my own), I want to share my experiences, and more importantly, my mistakes. No one really talks about the ugly sides of traveling, when things go wrong, and what to do to fix them. This probably due to this constant pressure to show our “best side” on social media. It’s always a competition to show off who’s living the better life. People post their peaks and nothing else, and when you’re only seeing the highlights of other people’s lives, it becomes somewhat discouraging. It’s easy to think that you could never experience the things that these people get to, because their lives seem to be so perfect. I promise you, they’re not. Things will always go wrong (because that’s just life), and traveling is no exception. Because I am young and slightly irresponsible, I’ve had quite a few mishaps throughout my journeys. No biggie, you learn, you grow. I would, however, love nothing more than to share the three main lessons that I have taken from my trips. That way, maybe you don’t have to learn the hard way, like I did.